Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) has immediate plans to provide broadband connectivity through Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) to over 5,000 villages all over the country.

This was revealed by A.N.J. Aradhya, General Manager and National Coordinator, Broadband Projects at “Wireless World 2007” — a national conference and exhibition on wireless technology organised by the Manufacturers Association for Information Technology here on Wednesday.

In his presentation on WiMAX, Mr. Aradhya said the corporation has already set up one base station each at 10 cities — Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Pune (for urban deployment) and Hissar, Panipat, Rohtak and Pinjore (all in Haryana for rural deployment) to trial test WiMAX.

Mr. Aradhya foresaw a bright future for rural areas insofar as Internet connectivity was concerned with the deployment of WiMAX. While existing wired Broad Band was working well in urban areas, WiMAX would help service providers to offer facilities in rural areas where provision for wired connections was difficult.

Though broadband through Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), which uses copper telephone pairs, is cheaper to WiMAX considering high cost of Customer Premise Equipment of the latter, the prices are likely to come down, he noted. The Union government would provide funds to offer WiMAX in rural areas.